Claire Barclay

Claire Barclay is best known for assemblage sculptures that deftly draw upon the everyday. To create the objects in her sculptures, Barclay works with a wide variety of craft and industrial techniques, and the “making” of things is a central concern of her work, linking her to a generation of sculptors who have returned to the exploration of materials and production processes. Barclay’s assemblages lend mystery to the often familiar-seeming objects that she employs. Elements like doilies are lent a futuristic and unfamiliar air, separated from their traditional use-value and completely re-imagined in a new sculptural context.

Barclay has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and has won awards from the Scottish Arts Council and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. She has had solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Camden Arts Center, Tate Britain, Moderna Museet, and Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Art.